


Curiosities

by ancalime8301



Series: Case of the Headless Corpses [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Case Fic, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Murder Mystery, POV John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4262172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancalime8301/pseuds/ancalime8301
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A corpse is discovered in the midst of a collection of anatomical models and medical curiosities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosities

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/profile)[**watsons_woes**](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/) July Writing Prompt #3: [Picture prompt](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/1282916.html) [my description: colored leaf with half of a skull etched out of one side]
> 
>  **Warning:** If you are squeamish about disembodied body parts and skeletons and such things, this is not the fic for you. (If you can handle the [Mutter Museum](https://www.google.com/search?q=mutter+museum&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=2KSWVczFM8auggT706eABA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg&biw=1366&bih=696), you'll be fine.)

Lestrade was pale and unusually close-lipped when he came to ask Holmes' assistance with a murder.

He took us to a hall housing an astonishing array of anatomical specimens. Such a collection would not have been out of place at a medical school. The displays closest to the door were of normal human limbs or organs, modeled in wax or preserved in jars of formaldehyde. Along the walls were skeletons of various sizes and in varying degrees of health, from normal to quite disfigured.

Further into the room were the models of disease and malformation, mostly human but I thought I also spied a dog's heart brimming with worms before Lestrade led us around the end of a tall display case and our victim came into view.

The man was neatly dressed and posed in an armchair, an open book on his lap and a pipe in his right hand. He might have been a visitor taking a rest or a mannequin belonging in the display if not for one thing: he had been decapitated and a white, grinning skull was perched where his own head should have been.

A knot of constables carefully studying their feet stood nearby, and in the midst of them was a thin, nervous man, likely the caretaker, for he was wringing his hands and murmuring "Oh dear oh dear oh dear" in an endless litany of dismay. Holmes paid them no heed and immediately began examining the posed corpse with his lens.

"Origin of the skull?" he asked after several minutes as he peered at it.

"A skeleton on the left wall," Lestrade said. I looked in the direction he pointed and saw a figure with a contorted torso that also happened to be missing its head.

"Has the head been found?"

"Not yet."  



End file.
